Apologies I didn’t want to sound arrogant or cause offence with my post. It was aimed at no one in particular, I just stated my opinion on the subject. I have re-read my post and nothing seems to be unreasonable nor unrealistic and I take nothing back.
I really think though, in todays age where university is open to many more kids, even compared to a decade ago it would be foolish to miss out on gaining a good degree from a good university. In fact I think if you have good grades at A-Level the choice not go to university speaks volumes about you as a person and your attitude to life. There are exceptions to that I’m sure, but generally speaking it’s the case.
The sentence where I mentioned about flying and football was a generalisation and you have blown it all out of context! I don’t imagine for one minute that any pilot with or without a degree can only talk about those two subjects. All I was doing was to illustrate my point that by going to university it widens your horizons to many things, not just academics. Going to university can’t do you any harm can it and at the age of 21 or 22 there is more than enough time to ‘get a life’ and that much wanted position on the flight deck.